Sarah Binder

I thought I would add a few observations to Jon Bernstein’s thoughtful discussions here and here about potential reforms of the Senate’s Rule 22.  Jon and others wonder whether the proposal to ban the filibuster on the motion to proceed to a bill would matter all that much: Eliminating the need to get 60 to […]

Greg Koger offers important insights here about potential reforms of Senate rules that seek to encourage “talking filibusters.”  Although as Greg notes, we lack details about the mechanics of the proposed rule change, the gist of the potential reform is two-fold. First, senators seeking to delay or derail measures and amendments would be forced to […]

Suzy Khimm reports on a proposal from the Bipartisan Policy Center that would establish a framework for reaching a grand bargain on deficit reduction in 2013.  In short, the BPC proposes that Congress and the president in the lame duck session would agree to a procedural framework for guiding enactment of major spending and tax […]

Okay.  So, I have an insatiable weakness for corny fiscal cliff puns.  Hopefully this 1915 Clifford Berryman cartoon makes up for it. In any case, I thought I’d weigh in briefly on the incessant Washington discussion about the likelihood that Congress and the president will be able to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff […]

Political scientists, so far as I know, aren’t typically on the guest list for the Kansas City Fed’s economic symposium in Jackson Hole.   (But honestly, who in their right mind would give up a trip to New Orleans in a hurricane for a weekend in the Grand Tetons?)   Coverage of this year’s conference though reminds […]

I am looking forward to reading Richard Arenberg and Robert Dove’s new book, Defending the Filibuster, which comes out tomorrow.  Niels Lesniewski’s preview in Roll Call provides a glimpse of some of the authors’ arguments.   First, they oppose what many call “reform-by-ruling,” or altering Senate rules by majority vote at the start of a Congress.  […]

“This is a way to shake your fist at the big bad Fed, and it’s not a good way.” That was Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) on the House floor yesterday, summing up the opposition to Ron Paul’s  (R-Texas) “Audit the Fed” bill.  After decades of introducing bills to either audit or end the Fed (proposals routinely […]

Chief Justice John Roberts put it best yesterday. “We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.” And so the battle over the future of health care reform goes […]

Oddly enough, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee and the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors have something in common:  They make decisions in secret, and they don’t explain themselves very well.  Watching Bernanke’s press conference this afternoon at the close of the FOMC’s June meeting, I couldn’t help but wonder how economists could […]

Wonkblog reports that Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has been researching potential fixes for the Senate filibuster: “I’m doing some research on how cloture has been used” since it was put into effect in 1917, she explains. In classic Snowe form, her hope is to try to find a procedural fix that would also be a compromise […]